SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — With every playoff win, the members of the Marshwood High School football team are sailing deeper into uncharted waters.

On Saturday night, the Western Maine Class B champion Hawks (10-1) will face Eastern Maine champ Mt. Blue (11-0) at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland for the state title. It’s the Hawks’ first appearance in this game since 1989, before any of their current players were born.

Still, some of the leaders on this team are no strangers to big athletic stages.

Just not outdoor stages.

Senior co-captain Nick Janes and sophomore linebacker Jackson Howarth won state wrestling titles in their respective weight classes last winter. Co-captain Dan Lizotte and leading rusher Brett Gerry also had a hand in the school’s first Class A team title back in February.

And they can see some parallels.

“Wrestling helps with tackling,” said Janes, a running back/cornerback, “and then just quick thinking. Because in wrestling, it’s you versus him and it’s all about knowledge and knowing what you’re doing. Out here, you can get that quick reaction to everything, so I think that helps.”

An estimated 4,000 fans watched Marshwood beat York, 21-20, in the Class B regional final last Saturday. It was the biggest football setting any of the Hawks had ever played in but, for some, not completely unlike a packed gym in February.

“I think so,” said Janes, who wrestled mostly at 145 pounds last winter. “You kind of get used to the pressure. That helps with the big crowds and all that.”

From the first day of practice in August, when he began implementing a new Delaware Wing-T offense, first-year coach Alex Rotsko could see who was grasping things quickly and who had trouble getting up to speed.

In Janes — “one of the smarter football kids that I’ve coached,” said Rotsko — and Lizotte, a fullback on offense and inside linebacker who was “probably the most improved player as the season went on,” the coach found a couple of team leaders who quickly bought in to the way he wanted to do things.

Lizotte wrestled at 171 pounds last winter, winning plenty of matches but falling one win shy of a place at states.

Gerry has burst onto the scene as a sophomore, starting at running back and outside linebacker, and rushing for 1,097 yards. He also looks to see an expanded role on the mats this winter after sharing a weight class with state champion Cody Hughes as a freshman.

Howarth, the state champion at 132 pounds as a freshman, should be back in the lineup at linebacker Saturday after missing the last seven games with an injury.

Tom Howarth, Jackson’s dad, coaches the freshman football team and is an assistant wrestling coach. His son was one of four Marshwood wrestlers to win Class A state titles in their respective weight classes last winter. Hughes and Tyler Davidson were the others.

“I would say that mental toughness is the biggest thing for a wrestler,” said Tom Howarth. “Physically and mentally, you have to be tough on the mat. It’s just them against the other opponent. On a football field, you have other teammates to lean on, but those kids that wrestled are going to be leaders, in my eyes. Mentally, they’re pretty tough. When they’re on the mat, it’s just them and their opponent.”

That’s not all the programs share.

Wrestlers at Marshwood wear singlets emblazoned with the letters “MTR,” to honor the memory of former wrestler Matty Rix, longtime coach Matt Rix’s son, who passed away in 2009.

In football, many players shaved the No. 7 in their haircuts to honor the memory of Troy Pappas, a captain on last year’s team who died last month from injuries sustained during an accident at Bates College.

But it’s also the leadership that’s been transferred.

“It’s good to see how they’ve brought everything together for the football team,” said Rix. “And I’ve heard good things about the coach, too. He reminds me of (former coach Rod) Wotton.”

Rix played football for Marshwood in the 1980s under Wotton. So did Tom Howarth. For them, seeing the way the community has flocked to these football playoff games by the thousands brings back memories of the golden age, when Marshwood football was winning 17 state championships between 1966 and ’89.

“This new coach has really taken control and is doing a great job,” said Howarth. “The kids love him. They want to play for him. They respect him. It’s kind of what we had back in the ’80s with Wotton.

“And Matt Rix has the same similarities at Coach Rotsko. The kids love him, they respect him and they want to work hard for him.”

Rix is hoping that success begets success. He’s expecting a few football players to come out for wrestling for the first time this winter.

“We’re going to feed off it,” said Rix. “There’s common ground. We both work in the weight room. That’s really working well.”

The Hawks play for the state title on Saturday. Wrestling practice starts on Monday. Knowing his athletes like he does, Rix expects the football guys — banged-up or not — to jump right in, though MPA rules permit them some time off.